Help on 1st recipe

[ChainPain]

Hello.

Like I said on my introduction, I'm a newbie from Portugal (so I don't have access to some ingredients) and I live in an apartment so I use Extract or Partial Mash recipes.

For my first recipe I've chosen a Mackeson’s Stout and made some adjustments because I can't get all the ingredients. Since it was my first batch I only made half of the recipe so I don't screw.

Mackeson’s Stout 5 gallons recipe:

Classification: stout, sweet stout, English stout, Mackeson’s, extract, brown sugar

Ingredients:
• 4 pounds, dark malt extract (I used 1.7 instead of 2 pounds of Brewferm Dark Malt Extract 45ebc/19L).
• 2 pounds, soft brown sugar (used 1 pound of Muscovado/Barbados sugar)
• 8 ounces, gravy browning (caramel) (used 4 ounces of honey)
• 1-3/4 ounces, Fuggles hops (used the same amount in pellet).
• ale yeast (used half of Brewferm Top Yeast: Universal top-fermenting beer yeast. Flocculation: medium/high. Final gravity: low.)

Procedure:
Boil hops in 20 pints of water for 1 hour (I boiled 1.32 gallons). Strain and dissolve extract, caramel and sugar. Boil for 15 minutes. Bring to 5 gallons (added water til 2.64 gallons), pitch yeast at correct temperature. As in the previous recipe (same recipe but AG), this can be brought to a gravity of 1.045 by increasing the extract by 1/4 pound, and lactose may also be added. A few drops of caramel may be added at this stage if sufficient color has not been achieved. Saccharine can be added at bottling to increase apparent sweetness.

Specifics:
• O.G.: 1.040 (was 1.042)
• F.G.: 1.008-1.010

I made of few mistakes, some ingredients were not at scale: used 1.7 instead of 2 pounds of DME and the Fuggles hops were for the intire recipe.

After 8h the airlock started to have a lot of activity. Two days later (yesterday) I was adding some ingredients to BeerSmith 2 and I realize that the package of Brewferm Top Yeast is made for the same amount of brew that I made... but I only added half... When I realized this I added the rest very slowly so as not to oxygenate and measured the gravity. It was 1.006 after 2 days of fermentation.

What should I expect from this?

Thanks in advanced.

 

[ChainPain]

After 4 days the gravity remained at 1.006 so I bottled in the sixth day.

 

[scrawbag]

sounds like it worked out nicely in the end.

 

[ChainPain]

Hi there.

Let's hope.

Timeline:
- OG 1.042
- 2 days in fermentation bucket (that's when I realize that I've only added half of the yeast) the gravity as 1.006
- 4 days (second day with all the yeast) the gravity remained at 1.006
- At the 6th day the gravity remainded at 1.006 so I bottled.

So it means that after 2 days in the fermentation bucket the beer was already "made", because the gravity stopped there?

 

[dfc]

Well, you're definitely going to make beer. I would have let it sit on the yeast much longer than 6 days though. Next time give it at least 2 weeks (preferably 3 weeks or more depending on style) before bottling.

 

[ChainPain]

Hello dfc.

Since I am a newbie, this topic took several days to be approved, so I decided to bottle.

My only concern was the amount hops I've used (twice the the amount) so I was afraid that it would get very bitter because when I opened the bucket to add the missing yeast I've tasted a bit and was very bitter. On the 6th day not so much but it was a flat/dead beer (as it should be at this stage, I think).